Mark reached for the stack of towels by his robe when a clatter of metal was heard behind the screen. Staci emerged with several small tools in one hand and a clipboard in the other. “Don’t worry, Dr. Merrill. I’ll pick that stuff up before I go tonight. I totally knew he would do it! So far, he has been perfect on every blind test, and reciprocal readings are exactly the same. It’s all interconnected!” Staci continued to pick her way around the tubes and wires to where they were standing, talking all the time. “Mr. Harris…”
“Mark, please.”
By now Elizabeth, smiling broadly at her young scientist’s enthusiasm, had risen from her chair and was standing next to Mark.
“Huh?” Staci was excitedly looking at the readout paper on the metal clipboard she was carrying. “Mr. Harris, your response on both triggers was simultaneous to the input. Simultaneous! Before the information could disperse through the water. And the drop in photosynthesis wasn’t from shading but because I removed two kelp leaves!” By now she had almost reached him, all the while showing him the small scalpel used in the test. “Did you feel…” Staci’s moment of excitement occupied some of the attention she should have been giving to her surroundings, and the last bundle of wires on the floor grabbed her foot and she shot straight into them.
With no show of effort or surprise, Mark dropped the towel, while at the same time lifting Elizabeth off her feet and out of the way of the collision. Almost at the same moment, with his right hand, he caught Staci in midair. The clipboard, paper, and tools she was holding crashed to the floor. With his arm around her waist, Mark held her against his body, her feet dangling.
“I’m sorry.” She brushed hair away from her eyes and pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her nose as he set her gently to the ground. “Those darn wires are…”
No other words left her lips. With her vision twenty-twenty again, the first thing she saw was that not everything had fallen harmlessly to the floor. The scalpel had embedded itself in Mark’s forearm. The pretty young scientist was frozen with shock and could only stare at the shining piece of metal, seemingly glued to Mark’s body.
“Oh, my God!” The words were barely a whisper as Jason steadied her. “Oh God, I’m sorry.”
“Mark, are you all right?” Elizabeth, by this time, had a hold of Mark’s wrist and was carefully lifting his arm to assess the trouble.
After a moment of silence, he responded, “Yes, Elizabeth, I am fine. It has done no interior damage. It can be removed.”
Jason, after easing Staci into the closest chair, took a quick look at the weapon and started for the cabinet next to Mark’s tank. “I’ll get the first aid kit!”
“No, Jason, it’s not necessary.” And with that Mark watched as Dr. Merrill gently grabbed the handle of the instrument and smoothly drew it from his arm.
“No of course not. Sorry I forgot.” Jason was back at Staci’s side as she weakly rose and stepped to Mark and Dr. Merrill.
“But, it was so deep. You’ll need a…” Staci stared in disbelief as the blade was drawn from Mark’s flesh and the red muscle tissue beneath his skin was visible.
Before the first drop of blood, which was rushing to the surface, could escape the opening, the edges at both ends of the wound started to draw together. In the space of less than three seconds, the entire two-inch opening had closed and the scar itself disappeared in the following five. In no more than fifteen seconds even the red discoloration was gone and no evidence remained of the previous trauma. Mark then extended the fingers of his left hand to their widest capability. As the fingers spread and the hand flexed, the webbing that normally lay retracted between them pushed forward. Repeating the motion several times, Elizabeth could see the skin extend to the first knuckle of each finger, indicating no tendon or ligament damage had been done.
Mark could only guess what was going on inside her mind, as Staci remained speechless. After Elizabeth handed her a glass of water from the desk, Staci looked from Mark’s arm to his eyes. “How…why did the…” The chair was once again very inviting. Her knees were not steady, and she sat with a small thud.
“I am sorry, Staci, that you did not know.” Mark sat on the edge of the desk and Elizabeth continued the explanation.
“We have all known about this ability of Mark’s for so long I guess we just forgot to tell you when you came aboard. You see, for someone like Mark, who lives in the sea, it would be the most dangerous thing to let blood escape from open wounds. The almost instant signal that is sent to all predators would mean certain death from even the most minor accident. It seems somewhere, long ago in Mark’s ancestry, they developed the genetic ability to close and heal all exterior lesions on their bodies. He must still be aware of damage that could occur under the skin, but his kind also have the ability to, more or less, get a reading on their own body and its functions, and that’s why he knew it was all right for me to remove the scalpel.”
“Please be assured, Staci. It was an accident and no damage was done.” With that said, Mark lifted her to her still unsteady feet. “I think perhaps that is enough work for tonight. You should go home and rest. Jason?”
“Sure, Mark. I’ll drive you home, Stace. Goodnight, Dr. Merrill!” With that, Jason grabbed his pack from the back of the chair where he had been sitting, threw it over his shoulder, and helped Staci remove her lab coat as he guided her to the door. “Hey, Staci, how ‘bout I film you so you can see the color start to come back into your face?” With his little smile and wink to Mark and Elizabeth, they went out the door, down the long hallway that led to lab #1, and to the exit room.
“Mark, I’ll notify security, and we should let it go for the night, too.”
“Yes, of course, Elizabeth. It has been a long time since lunch. Would you like to have dinner before you go home?”
“Sure, that would be nice. Let’s go to Somers-on-the-Pier. It’s close.”
“I will meet you there as soon as I change into my clothes.”
Mark watched Elizabeth gather her papers into her briefcase and give that little finger wave that she seemed to use only for him. She exited through the door and headed to her office.
The large room comforted him. It was still but not quiet. There were the computers humming and water moving in and out of the tanks.
He walked to the largest of the indoor tanks. The cement oval occupied a full one third of lab #3. The wall was five feet up from the floor, but the water depth dropped another fifteen feet. Standing there, he leaned against the top rail and looked over the edge. At the bottom, he could see that the gate that led to the sea channel was open. For a moment, he considered slipping over the side and swimming out and into the bay, but then he was content just to stand there and watch the ceiling lights reflect off the surface. His hands touching the cool salt water, and he thought of the years he and Elizabeth had spent together. She was a good person but so confusing to him in many ways. He more than trusted her. It was almost as if he belonged nowhere else and to no one else. It deeply affected him when she was less than happy. He felt good when some gesture he made or things would happen that made her smile or laugh. Why should that be?
With his past so dark and impenetrable, he could consider nothing more than the present. But what about the future? What was the future? He could not, as hard as he tried, think of his life past AORI, the ocean, and Elizabeth. That must be what it was. His future would be those three things and that would be good.
Why then did he sometimes feel like he was starting to feel right now? Again he felt there was a question and no words to tell him the answer. All these years had told him so much about what he was. There were databases here full of more information than had ever been gathered about any one person in the history of the world. But there was more. More he did not know. The simplest things. It was the same old feeling of a hand on the shoulder that he knew was not really there, bidding him to turn around and s
ee the life that was following him. He knew he would turn as he always did when he had that feeling. He also knew that, when he did turn, there would be nothing. He would be alone!
He must try harder to think inside this later, but now his heart lifted a little as he headed to his rooms to change and meet Elizabeth for dinner.
CHAPTER THREE
The night sky was clean and the moon was almost completely
full. Its reflection on the ocean looked like the paintings in the book of American Realists that Elizabeth had given to Mark. Rough, horizontal dabs of golden-yellow made a path that always led them as they walked along the beach. The tradition had begun many years ago. In the early days, the work at the lab had been more frenetic. When the two of them would make the escape for a meal at their favorite restaurant, they would park in the empty lot at the old pier and use the quiet walk of half a mile or so to relax. Now they would use this stretch of sand as their place whether they walked it alone or together.
The dinner had been quiet, but Mark felt that her silence was not from being unhappy but rather she was thinking deeply. Taking their time at the table and sitting outside on the deck afterwards had pushed the moon high overhead by the time they decided to go. They walked in silence from the restaurant towards the dark outline of the boat pier in the distance. It looked to Mark like a slender arm and hand pointing elegantly to the lot where their two cars were parked.
“Mark?”
He knew when she was ready she would break the silence, and he was glad he had waited.
“Mark, I hope I haven’t been bad company tonight.”
He smiled a little, knowing she knew he did not think that at all. Being in her presence was always a comfort to him and conversation was never what he sought.
“Today has been such a strange one. I don’t feel much better about Thomas Raggit being out of touch. After printing out his logins to the institute and giving them to the police, I agree he could be on another of his thinking retreats. It’s as though little pieces of the last twenty-five years were sprinkled all through it. Finding you napping in the pool,” a little smile between them, “then the accident at the lab.” She paused another moment. “Other things. It made me go back through all the times since you and I first met until now and put a real value on all we’ve accomplished.”
“We have done many great things, Elizabeth. You can be proud of your work at AORI and all it has accomplished.”
“Yes, I know, but I also think about you, Mark. Almost everything AORI has done could not have been done without you. You have been the key to unlocking the wonderful things we have been able to give the world. But what have we given you?”
“I do not understand.”
“At the end of every day, the staff, the doctors, Jason, and even young Staci…they all go home to their other lives. Their families, pets, loved ones, whatever. But where do you go, Mark?”
“To my house and out there…to the sea.” For a brief moment, he thought how good it would feel to be swimming just under the surface, following the golden drops of light above him, westward.
“Yes, I understand that. And I think I can feel what the ocean does for you. How it comforts you. I worry though, Mark, that you need more. That you need what we can’t give you.”
By this time, they had reached the pier and Mark stopped by one of the large pillars sunk far into the sand. He felt the increased dampness of the surrounding old wood. He instantly recognized the different plant life netted by the pylons from the retreating tide and all the familiar types growing on the logs. The mussels and other varieties of shellfish all had voices to his senses, and he knew his place with them. The other things were there too. The creosote that covered the wood, the trace of fuel he could smell in the foam tips of each wave, even the perfume and lotion the people wore that day on the sand. These things and thousands of other voices spoked with him every moment. Always in his mind. “Elizabeth, are you worried that I’m unhappy?”
“Are you?” She turned to him, took his arms in her hands, and looked directly into his eyes.
“Are you? Are you really happy, Mark?”
All the other voices faded in his ears now. Looking at her upturned head, he followed the moon’s reflected treasure deep into her hazel eyes. The perfume of her body silenced all others, and he tried to define what he felt from her touch and gaze. He could feel beyond the touch and behind the look to something deeper in her and in him too. It was more than kindness and care. It carried the feeling of no beginning and an endless future. It felt correct.
“Elizabeth, when I go out to the sea it is because that is where I belong. It is my home. When I return, it is because of you.”
He felt the increase in her heartbeat as she gently pulled him towards her. The kiss was brief. He had seen people kiss before and many times had been kissed on the cheek or hand—by Elizabeth and others—but he had never kissed. How curious that this kiss, this taste of her skin and the touch of her body up against his, after all these years of being so close to her, should feel so different. Her body leaned against him, and he enjoyed the slight pressure as she pressed closer. He felt the fabric of her jacket touch his hands. His palms rested on the soft curve of her hips, and he pulled her to him. The smallest sound came from her. He wanted to hold and protect the gentle thing that made that sweet sound.
Elizabeth settled away from the kiss, but still held Mark’s arms in her hands. Her eyes opened and she breathed deeply before starting to speak.
“Mark…I…”
What was it that signaled to him at times like these? What voice was the first warning? Often, in the sea, he would react to avoid danger before he was aware that any existed. So what was it now? Did he feel the air start to compress? Was there a sound of something moving in the air? Did the darkness of the night get the smallest bit darker for an instant? Or was it just a feeling? Whatever it was, his response was simultaneous. One second he was looking into her eyes, and the same second was shared by him sweeping her into his arms, around and under the safety of the pier. The footprints where they’d been standing were obliterated, and the beach shook when the huge block of cement crashed down from above.
Elizabeth’s scream and the sound of the parking barrier landing did not block Mark’s ability to hear footsteps fading out onto the pier.
“Are you all right?”
With her beginning to nod, Mark was off at a run. He covered the distance from under the pier up to the gate before she could say, yes. He paused briefly before exposing himself and, with the shadows cast by the moonlight to conceal him, he made his way as fast as possible along the length of the pier. As always happened when danger threatened, his senses intensified. The only sounds were the waves, the breeze as it passed through the railings, the traffic along the road by the beach, Elizabeth’s breathing, and her footsteps as she slowly made her way up the sand to the gate.
Was that a different noise in the water? Not enough to tell. He could feel no motion on the walkway other than the waves as they struck each pylon. But there was a smell! It was different—not something he could place but definitely something that did not belong.
It did not belong but yet it did belong! This smell was familiar. As it faded into the on-shore breeze, he tried to concentrate and retrieve the memory of it. It was gone. The air was clean and the promise his memory had teased him with fell back into the darkness. He continued to the end of the wharf, past the closed food stand, and the big double doors that enclosed the weekend rental boats. On reaching the end, he stopped at the long benches where during the day people fished or sat and ate their lunches, and he knew he was alone. Except for Elizabeth who had come through the gate and was standing at the far end waiting for him to return.
“There is no one here, Elizabeth.” The inside voices were quiet now, and he turned from the ocean’s dark horizon and walked back to her.
“Mark
, there’s no one on the beach in any direction for hundreds of yards!”
“Perhaps it was an accident.” Even as he spoke, everything was telling him it hadn’t been. The smell! What was the smell? Even the memory gave him a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. It had not only been familiar, but now he realized it had actually made him feel good. Almost comforted. He was now trying to think inside this. What could comfort but be beyond memory, beyond knowledge? He wanted to get deeper, but he had no logic to guide him.
“Mark, that block must weigh at least a ton. It didn’t just fall. Look!”
She had walked to the edge of the railing where the walkway of the pier met the pavement of the parking lot and was pointing at the ground. He joined her to see the large, dark rectangle of asphalt that, moments ago, lay under the cement parking barrier. It was now down in the sand.
With his arm around her, which he knew comforted her, he followed the impossible route of the cement block from its beginning in the parking lot, onto the pier, over the railing (without a scratch), and onto the beach. Below them, it stuck out of the sand in the very spot they had been standing. With one hand on the rough wooden railing and the other around her shoulders, he could feel that her breathing was still rapid and her heart was beating much faster than normal. They remained in the moonlight for awhile longer.
The smell! Where does that smell belong?
The next morning, Dr. Merrill pulled into her parking space while. Dr. Yoshio Nagashima was retrieving his cases and lunch sack from the trunk of his car. Since Yoshio came to work here twelve years ago, Elizabeth could not remember one day that his wife Kyoko had not sent his very traditional lunch along with him.
“What have I got today, Yosh?”
“Pretty much the same as yesterday, except perhaps some ono, which we should put in the refrigerator right away.”
Man from Atlantis Page 4
